Alec
I drove for hours. Basically I went in circles. I had intentions o
f
going
to the airport and flying home.
Instead I went where I should have gone the minute I fell for Nat. The minute I saw
myself falling into old habits and pushing everything away.
She was my last ho
pe. I knocked twice and waited.
“Alec?” The door opened. Mrs. Murray stepped out
. “
What are you doing? It’s late
.
Where
’
s Nat?”
My mouth opened. I tried to speak but nothing came out except for a cross
between a curse and a whimper.
“Come on.” Mrs. Murray, my old shrink
and
the original reason for AD2 settling
in
Seaside for a year, and of course
,
as luck would have it, Nat’s mom, let me into her small office off the living room
.
I sat on
the couch, suddenly exhausted.
“Am I Nat’s mom or your shrink
?
” Mrs. Murray
asked
softly.
“If you were Nat’s mom you’d castrate me
,
”
I muttered
. “
So please be the shrink. Put on the professional hat, sit back, pull out your notepad
,
and fix this.”
“Fix what?”
I shuddered
. “
Me. Fix me.”
“I can’t fix you.”
“You fixed Demetri.”
“Demetri fixed himself.” Mrs. Murray
’
s pen clicked in the background
. “
I just gave him the steps
toward
that.”
“I need more than steps. I need a freaking map with stickers
that say,
G
o
T
his
W
ay
.”
“Alec…” Mrs. Murray cleared her throat
. “
Let’s start at the beginning.”
“The
b
eginning?” I repeated, clenching my eyes shut as I fought to keep all of the memories
tightly sealed. “I
—
I can’t.”
“You can.”
I thought of Nat
,
o
f her smile, and why I couldn’t be with her
.
I thought of all the different ways I had failed her. I couldn’t fail her now. There
were so many secrets, so many lies, so many things I had kept to myself and never
told Demetri because I knew it would destroy him. I had thought him too weak to deal
with it, so I did
it for him
.
I
n my own ridiculous way, I handled things
.
I just ignored them and ignored how they a
te at my soul every single day.
I took a few deep breaths and answered
,
“
My dad. It starts with my dad.”
“When he died of cancer?”
“No…” My hands shook as tears streamed down my face
. “
When he adopted my brother.”
“Your brother?”
s
he
asked,
breathless.
“Demetri. We adopted Demetri.”
I heard the pen drop to the floor. And I could have sworn Mrs. Murray muttered a swear
word before she cleared her throat. “I take it he doesn’t know.”
“You think?” I snapped. “Sorry
,
that was rude.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I kept it from him.” I sighed
. “
When our dad was dying he said he didn’t want Demetri to go on without knowing the
truth. I promised my dad I would tell Demetri when he was older, when he was ready.
I mean
,
I’m only a year and a half older than him
.
I
t’s not like I was super mature at the time anyways. But I gave him my word.”
“What happened?”
I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling
. “
My family was always involved in the music industry, so when w
e got famous I
hid the truth. We had no family left. And honestly, I was selfish. Technically
,
Demetri had family left and
I didn’t. The story was that a girl from our
town had gotten pregnant at sixteen. My parents had always wanted another kid and
for some reason they couldn’t have any more after me. So they adopted him. Didn’t
say a word. The girl finished high school and got married.
But my dad lied. She wasn’t just a girl
.
S
he was one of his boss
’s
daughters
,
a
record exec to be exact. So for years Demetri has basically known his mother
,
but never really
known
her
. I didn’t even know who she was until it was too late. Guess where she lives
?”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“L
.
A.
,
” I finished
. “
She lives in L
.
A. Once we really made it, I told myself I wasn’t being selfish keeping Demetri to
myself. I mean
,
he was all I had
,
and I was jealous he had something I didn’
t. He was the favorite you know.
”
I sounded seriously ridiculous but I just kept talking
. “
My parents loved him
.
T
hey called him sunshine. I may as well have been rain.”
“I’m sure both your parents loved you equally.”
“They did.” I bit my lower lip
. “
I know that now. And I regret doing what I did. The funny thing?
I still have her contact information in my pocket
.
D
ad wrote it on a sticky note at the hospital. You have no idea how many times I’ve
wished I could go back and call that damn number.”
Mrs. Murr
a
y cleared her throat
. “
Who is she?”
I didn’t want to say. I mean I
really
didn’t want to say. I would rather rip off my fingernails one by one th
a
n admit who his mom was
—
admit that she still cared for Demetri and that she was basically
off he
r rocker in more ways than one.
So many lies.
Too many lies.
I swallowed.
“Jayemson
’
s step-mom is Demetri’s real mom.”
Silence.
“Yeah.”
“How?” Mrs. Murray dr
ag
g
ed
out the
H
in how. I would hav
e totally asked the same thing.
“Who knows
?
God hates us? We never worked with her
.
S
he was more of a trophy
-
wife type of gal. Soon after she moved to L
.
A
.
f
ate intervened
,
and she met British producer David Ca
rtwright. The rest is history.”
“You’ll have to fill me in, Alec. Are they still married?”
“Nope.” I closed my eyes again
. “
Oh and here
’
s the fun part
.
Y
ou ready?”
“I don’t know if I want to know, Alec.”
“In about
a day
, the shit is going to hit the fan and everyone in the world is going to
believe
that I slept with Demetri’s mom. Though, to be fair, I don’t even know if we slept
together. Pretty sure we were both drugged. At any rate
,
i
t’s over with. It’s so incredibly over. Not only will Demetri want to kill me but
Nat
will be done with me
, and I’m going to be ruining my brother
’
s music career. All because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some high
-
stepping
,
B
-
list actress had a camera phone.”
I winced
. “
She cornered me tonight
—
April
—
said some things that weren
’
t true
.
I
t was all caught on camera. I just…
I
t’s making me look bad and her like a saint.”
The clock ticked in the background. I still
lay
there, waiting for the
sound of a
gun
hammer
cock
ing
and for Mrs. Murray to blow my brains ou
t. Instead, I was left waiting.
Five minutes
went by and then another five.
Finally I opened
my eyes to peer at Mrs. Murray.
She was staring at me, and writing some things down on that damn yellow notepad. “Good.”
“Good?” I jumped from the couch
. “
Are you insane?”
“Same time tomorrow? Oh
,
and you can use Nat’s old room. Mr. Murray won’t
mind if you
have
to
stay for a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” I repeated.
“Yes.” Mrs. Murray smiled
. “
I may have fired myself as your shrink, but you need someone to talk to. I’ll try
to take off my mom hat when we talk
.
R
egardless
,
y
ou aren’t leaving
. Welcome to
C
asa de
Murray
.
T
ry to get some sleep.”
With that she left me alone in her
office and walked out the door.
Demetri
I had to sleep on it. I mean
,
any guy in my position would be not o
nly pissed but scared shitless.
The group was all downstairs for breakfast. Jaymeson looked like someone ran him over
with a
truck and Angelica looked like someone kicked her puppy. I refused to believe that
chick had feelings.
In fact, if she had a puppy and it hadn’t been kicked, well…
o
kay
,
may
be that was too far, but still.
Nat was in the corner eating toast, her cheeks were still puffy from all those tears,
and Alyssa was
baking.
One thing I learned about Alyssa. When she was stressed she made food. Which was bad
for me if I wanted to keep any sort of six
-
pack. At any rate
,
I told her
to
stop making muffins b
ecause they were making me fat.
With a deep sigh I walked over to where Nat was sitting and pulled up a chair
. “
So…
toast.”
Wow. Shoot me now
.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise
. “
That’s it? After everything that happened yesterday,
and the first word out of your
mouth is
toast
?”
“I’m a guy.”
“I think you were better on d
rugs.” This from Jaymeson.
“Not helping
,
” Alyssa sang from the kitchen, sweat poured from her face
.
T
he thing was going to
have
a stroke
from making too many pancakes.
I cleared my throat and tried again
. “
I…” Wow
,
that’s as good as it got. Pathetic
. “
I don’t know how to fix it.”
Nat set down her toast and reached across the table grabbing my hand in hers
. “
You can’t, Demetri.”
“But—
”
I clenched her hand until my fingers went numb
. “
I have to. Someone has to. I just
…
I’m stuck, Nat. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t know how to fix him
,
and I sure as hell don’t know how to finish the damn fairytale.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Nat’s eyes shone with tears
. “
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit down and cry.” She wiped under her eyes and
sighed
. “
If he needs this…
I’m going to wait.”
“But—”
Alyssa smacked me on the back of the head before I could finish my thought. Jaymeson
chuckled in the corner. His face looked like someone had just r
u
n him over with a truck.
“Shut it.” I glared in his direction
. “
Shouldn’t you get your face fixed?”
“Shouldn’t your brother stop screwing older women?”
The room fell silent.
I looked to
Nat, but she was staring down at her plate. Jaymeson needed to
rein
it in before I killed him.
I
glanced
at my phone. Five minutes until the filming would start
.
T
hey always gave us a few minutes to get our shit together before the cameras started
rolling. “Take a walk with me?” I nodded to Nat.
She pushed back her
chair and followed me outside.
“I need to know what you know.” I put my arm around her and
led her
toward
the boardwalk.
With a shudder she tucked her head into my chest and sighed
. “
He’s on
antidepressants
and he said he hasn’t dealt with everything from his past. That’s basically all I
know. I mean…
honestly, what could be so bad that he feels like he can’t even talk to us?”
I just shook my head and gave a bitter laugh
. “
Could it really be worse than him getting my girlfriend pregnant to get back at me
and then her and his son dyin
g
in a car accident?”
It wasn’t funny but Nat
smirked,
because we both knew the reality of it was our lives were full of drama
,
and it was all self inflicted and alm
ost too unbelievable for words.
“I guess it must be, otherwise he would tell us.”
We
kept
walking, and all of a sudden I was hit with the extreme gut
-
wrenching, leg
-
stumbling, mind
-
altering feeling of déjà vu. “Nat?”
She stopped. “What?”
I looked down at the ground as I felt my heart constrict in my chest
. “
I wish it was me.”
“What do you mean?”
I cupped her face with my hands
,
gently wiping her tears away as I did so
. “
I wish so damn bad it would have been me. I wish you would have given me your heart
so that in the end it was me breaking it
—
not him. I wish I could give you a do-over. I wish so much that you would have chosen
me, because in the end, I could have saved you from this. Maybe then I could have
been the one to ruin you
—
maybe then you would be in his arms instead of mine.”
Nat’s eyes closed.
“Nat, it kills me. This freaking kills me.” I choked down a sob
. “
Because I can’t do anything to make it better. I can’t fix Alec
.
I don’t even know what his big secret is. I just…
I don’t know, sometimes I wish I could turn back time.”
“But then you wouldn’t
have Alyssa
,
”
s
he pointed out.
“I would have found her.”
“And then what?”
“At least I could have saved you.” I looked away so she wouldn’t see me cry. But it
wasn’t for me. They weren’t selfish tears
.
T
hey were tears for her, tears for my brother, and tears for the life that I knew was
going to be affected more than anyone else in our group.
Hers.
Nat’s lower lip trembled
,
but other than that there was no visible sign of emotion. I w
asn’t sure what freaked me out
more
,
her indifference or the fact that her eyes were so full of fear
that
I knew I couldn’t abandon her if my life depended on it. Did that make me better than
Alec? Or was he truly doing what was best for her by allowing himself to deal with
his baggage before it consumed them both?
“You excited?” I changed the subject and touched her stomach.
Her face broke out into a beautiful smile
. “
I’m terrified.”
I moved my hand and pulled her into a hug, kissing her forehead
. “
Nah, no reason to be terrified, that little baby’s going to have everything.”
Everything but a father
.
The uns
poken
phrase made me close my eyes so tears wouldn
’t drip onto Nat’s pretty head.
If Alec knew, he wouldn’t have left
.
I
t was the only thing keeping me fro
m running him over with my car.
“Time to go back.” I stepped away and grabbed her hand
. “
The production crew will want to film the drama of today.”
“They had a f
renzy last night.” Nat snorted.
“Yeah
,
well…
it was good
TV
, you can’t script that shit
.
I
t was media gold.”
Nat sighed
. “
People
’
s lives getting ruined always is.”